Blog 5: Australia’s First AA Office
When AA began in Australia in 1945 AA in the United States was going through what has been described as its “adolescent period,” during which the Traditions were developed. Letters exchanged between early members of AA in Australia and the General Service Office in New York make clear the debt of gratitude Australian AA owes to people like Bobbie B, AA’s General Secretary in New York. Through her correspondence with AA members in Australia, Bobbie helped provide literature, offered support and encouragement, and provided wise counsel, reassuring the Australian groups that their challenges and mistakes were similar to those faced by AA’s pioneers in the U.S.
Establishing an organisational structure in Australia was a daunting task fraught with disagreement and disunity. AA had no central point of contact for the public, and obtaining literature was very challenging. Disunity that threatened to tear us apart, but this was met with remarkable determination, dedication to AA’s principles and great leadership from some of our early members as well as our supporters.
In 1948, tensions in AA led to the creation of two rival offices, located a short distance from each other. However, both offices closed within a year. After this Clive B and his dedicated wife Lorna, stepped up and ran the office from their home in North Sydney until 1952. In 1952 representatives from Sydney AA groups (including Clive B) formed the NSW Service Council and a search for office space began.
One of Australian AA’s greatest non-alcoholic friends, Frank Sturge Harty, known as “Sturge,” was a popular radio presenter in Sydney who regularly discussed Alcoholics Anonymous on his show “Let’s Talk it Over”. In 1952, Sturge made a public appeal on behalf of AA, stating that the organisation needed office space. In response, Mrs. Karsen, the wife of a Sydney hairdresser, convinced her husband to rent AA a small space between two partitions in his shop at 173 Pitt Street, Sydney.
On September 9, 1952, the office officially opened. One of the early secretaries, Wyllie P described the scene:
“…There we started in the first week of September 1952. What with Mr. Karsen on our right talking about the Spirit World and seances; Mr. Jesus Caruso, another hairdresser on our left telling dubious stories; and we in the centre, talking about the Power greater than ourselves, there was not much privacy, nor was there much room, but it sufficed and AA grew. I well remember the first day I was in it. Clive B of North Sydney and Bill R of Randwick asked me what I thought of it and I said, ‘Not much’…”
The NSW Service Office established in this small unconventional setting was the first successful Service Office in Australia and provided much of the literature across Australia for many years. Now located in Parramatta, it remains the oldest Service Office in Australia and continues to serve AA members as a local Central Service Office. It is the oldest Service Office in the country, an important part of our history and a testament to the resilience and dedication of those who helped lay the foundations for AA in Australia.
